Chapter 37 Wouldn't It Be Better If Mom Were Dead?

Chapter 37 Wouldn't It Be Better If Mom Were Dead?
Years ago, shortly after the New Year, Nathan had returned home from a university alumni dinner completely heavily intoxicated. Two of his old classmates had to physically carry him through the front door.
After collapsing onto his bed, he had suddenly staggered to the master bathroom, violently vomiting into the toilet until he was dry-heaving.
Ten-year-old Mason had quietly brought him a glass of water, only to find his father slumped against the cold tiles, frantically clawing at his own pockets. "Where is it?" Nathan had slurred, his chest heaving with panic. "Where's my phone?"
Mason had quickly retrieved the device from the bedside table and handed it over.
Nathan's trembling fingers swiped at the screen, pulling up a grotesque, sensationalized news article. His eyes, completely bloodshot, stared at the text with absolute, unadulterated terror.
"It's a lie. It's a load of fabricated crap," Nathan choked out, his voice cracking violently. He shoved the screen toward Mason. "Look at this, Mason. It's fake. How could something like this possibly happen in the real world?"
Mason had glanced at the headline. It was a horrific true-crime report about a kidnapped woman who had disappeared for over a decade, only to be found by her husband locked in an iron cage on display in a red-light district in Thailand.
"It can't be true," Nathan hyperventilated, grabbing his own hair, his mind spiraling into the darkest, most agonizing abyss imaginable. "I searched... God, I searched everywhere. Every city, every godforsaken town marked on the map. But the world is so big! What if she was trafficked? What if she's in another country? How could I possibly cover the entire world?!"
He collapsed forward, burying his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking violently. "I can't find her. I can't find her. Is she in a cage right now? Is she waiting for me to rescue her? And I can't find her!"
Nathan's agonizing, guttural sobs had echoed off the bathroom walls.
Standing there in his pajamas, ten-year-old Mason—the boy who had spent his entire childhood praying to the stars that his mother would come home—suddenly spoke in a flat, chillingly measured tone.
"Maybe she's been dead for a long time."
Nathan froze, his breath hitching.
"Dad, listen to Grandma," the boy continued ruthlessly, his childish face entirely blank. "Stop looking. She's dead. Mom has been dead for a very long time."
When those brutal words left Mason's lips, the boy had actually felt a sudden, profound release. He permanently severed his own hope. He accepted that she was a ghost.
And he desperately wished Nathan could do the same. Wouldn't it be infinitely better to just believe she was dead?
But Nathan had refused.
He slowly, fiercely shook his head, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, absolute obsession. "No. She's not dead. She'll come back. She will come back... maybe she'll be back by morning."
Mason had said nothing.
Although he had never known his mother, he had once loved the phantom idea of her. He had imagined her warm embrace, her sweet voice, the idyllic fantasy of a reunited family.
But in that horrific moment on the bathroom floor, Mason genuinely wished his mother had been murdered.
If she were confirmed dead, Nathan's heart could finally die, too. His father could finally find peace instead of being roasted alive over the coals of false hope every single day. He could visit a grave, leave flowers, and mourn like a normal human being.
Instead, stranded in the agonizing purgatory of a missing person case, Nathan was drowning. It was a horror story with no ending.

Now, standing in his bedroom, fourteen-year-old Mason stared at the stolen photograph in his hands.
His dark eyes mapped the smiling face of the girl in the white dress, comparing it to the face of the young woman who had just sat across from him at the steakhouse.
His brow furrowed into a deep, disturbed line.
How can she look exactly like the woman in this photo? Mason thought, his chest tightening with sudden, sickening realization. They are practically identical.
A twisted, psychological horror dawned on the teenager. Was his father using that young girl as a literal doppelganger? Was Nathan so deeply traumatized by his dead wife that he had hunted down an identical, teenage substitute to project his sick fantasies onto? Was that why his father had looked so devastated when she tried to move in?
Mason couldn't figure it out.
After all, he was just a middle-schooler buried in textbooks. He hadn't seen the bizarre, sensationalized news reports from a month ago about the "miracle coma patient" waking up. He had absolutely no idea that the impossible had actually happened.
He didn't know that the girl in the twenty-three-year-old photograph and the "gold digger" he had glared at tonight were the exact same person.

Across the city, as the first grey light of dawn bled through the blinds, Chloe opened her eyes.
Truthfully, she hadn't slept a wink. She had tossed and turned all night, her mind running in endless circles. As soon as it was light, she dragged herself out of bed, slipped into the elegant new clothes Nathan had meticulously picked out for her, and decided to grab a quiet breakfast before he arrived to drive her to work.
She walked down the freezing block to the little café Nathan had introduced her to. She ordered a bowl of oatmeal and a bacon-and-egg sandwich, chewing thoughtfully as she watched the city wake up.
Nathan’s rejection and cold psychological analysis from the night before had stung, but Chloe wasn't deterred.
She would just have to force him to believe her.
She could feel the invisible, magnetic tether between them. It was frayed and bloody, but it hadn't snapped.
Nathan insisted he had changed into a bitter, unrecognizable man. And it was true—the Nathan of today was different. He was intimidatingly mature, ruthless, and guarded. Yet, he still treated her with an excruciating, obsessive care, handling her as if she were a priceless, fragile porcelain doll that might shatter if he breathed too hard.
It was a stark contrast to the boy he used to be.
Back in their newlywed days, after years of her aggressively breaking down his walls, Nathan had transformed from a brooding, untouchable genius into a man who absolutely lived to be doted on.
In the early mornings of their marriage, he used to cling to her like a massive, deeply satisfied koala, too lazy to even open his eyes.
“Honey, I'm thirsty,” he would murmur against her bare shoulder, his voice rough with sleep. “Pour me a glass of water.”
A young, newlywed Chloe would laugh, fully aware of his manipulative charm. “You want water? The kitchen is exactly ten steps away, Nathan.”
“But I'm exhausted. I don't want to move,” Nathan would whine, burying his handsome face into her neck, pressing hot, lazy kisses against her pulse point. “Pour it for me, baby.”
“Why are you so tired? You just woke up!”
“Are you joking?” He would shift his heavy weight, pinning her beneath him, a wicked, extremely satisfied smirk playing on his lips. “I spent half the night buried inside you. I worked incredibly hard to make sure you were taken care of. I can barely feel my legs.”
“You are completely shameless!” Chloe would flush bright red, weakly shoving at his rock-hard chest. But he would just wrap his long limbs around her like an octopus, his voice dropping into a raspy, irresistible hum. “Chloe... Chloe, please...”
Ultimately, she could never resist him. Resigned and completely whipped, she would roll out of the tangled sheets, walking naked to the kitchen to fetch his water.
And the beautiful bastard wouldn't even lift a finger to take the glass. He would just part his lips and let her tip the water into his mouth. Then, he’d let out a dramatic, contented sigh and pull her violently back down onto the mattress. “Ah, perfect. Recharged. Come here. Now it's my turn to take care of you again.”
Whenever he teased her like that, he would draw out her name with an innocent, guileless expression, entirely masking the dark, possessive predator underneath.
Chloe knew, even back then, that his submissive act was just a brilliant manipulation.
After all, in high school, she had always played the role of the older, wiser protector. It wasn't until her junior year of college that she fully realized she was hopelessly, desperately in love with him.
One Valentine's evening, completely terrified of losing him, she had dragged him out to the dark riverside path behind his medical campus.
“Do you know what it means when a guy and a girl go out alone on Valentine's night?” she had asked, her voice trembling.
Nathan, who had just turned eighteen, looked down at her. His dark eyes—which always looked intensely melancholic when he wasn't smiling—blinked innocently. “No idea.”
Chloe had taken a deep, ragged breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and practically shouted her courage into the night air. “It means we are officially dating!”
“Oh. Really?”
A dark, intensely triumphant smile had flashed across Nathan's face—a wolf finally closing the trap on its prey. But the hyperventilating Chloe hadn't noticed it.
She had turned her face away, her cheeks burning like fire, staring blindly at the river while her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists behind her back.
Outwardly, she had tried to look confident. Inwardly, she was in absolute chaos.
She hadn't wanted to confess first. But Nathan was so devastatingly handsome, and his genius reputation had spread so far, that stunning upperclassmen were constantly circling him like sharks. They went to different universities. If she didn't aggressively claim him right then and there, she was terrified someone else would snatch him away.
Little did I know, Chloe thought now, stirring her oatmeal with a faint, bittersweet smile, he had already rigged the entire game just to make me jump.